


Just One Prayer

by ChokolatteJedi



Series: Say A Little Prayer [2]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angels, Betrayal, Demons, Families of Choice, Family, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Introspection, Mental Link, Minor Mazikeen/Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:15:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23153875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChokolatteJedi/pseuds/ChokolatteJedi
Summary: Lucifer has to get used to having devotees.
Series: Say A Little Prayer [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1664404
Kudos: 112





	Just One Prayer

**Author's Note:**

> Set a week and a half after the end of "Blood Crumbs"

Lucifer wasn’t lying when he said that he wasn’t used to receiving prayers. He and Maze tended to use the skill for one of two things: talking in bed while their mouths were full, and keeping tabs on each other during a fight. On Earth, there had been the occasional “time to go” when Amenadiel or Michael showed up to drag them back to Hell, but it wasn’t a regular thing.

There was a trick to filtering the prayers, when one tended to get too many of them, but that had literally never been Lucifer’s problem, and he didn’t exactly feel like asking one of his brethren to teach him the trick now. Though, come to think of it, Rae Rae wouldn’t be a bad place to start.

Fortunately, Linda and Ella weren’t exactly overwhelming him with prayers. Linda tended to keep herself closed off at work, with just the occasional bit of commentary at lunch or in the evenings. Ella, on the other hand, always greeted him cheerfully in the morning when she rose, though she refrained from wishing him goodnight, because, in her words, “he might be getting it on then, and that would just be icky”.

She also shared jokes that amused her throughout the day, her occasional Eureka moment in the lab, and the occasional "feel better" from someone else at the precinct.

Maze was even forgoing her usual radio silence to check in daily, and he with her, as per Linda’s suggestion to get over the current rockiness of their relationship.

Perhaps, if he had more than three devotees, or if one of them tended to chatter more, Lucifer might have had a harder time transitioning from the silence in his own head, but all told he only spent probably twenty minutes a day fielding comments and texting replies with his three girls.

Still, it was the first time since before his Fall that Lucifer had more than just Maze rattling around inside there, and the reminder of what he had lost - what his siblings had denied him - was painful at the same time that he reveled in it.

Angels were, by nature, a highly social species. They spoke to each other frequently, both normally and internally. They groomed each other’s wings and were slightly more touchy-feely than most humans would find acceptable. Not in a sexual way, but more in the way that pets liked to cuddle with their humans. Lucifer had often found the behavior amusingly replicated in humans who smoked pot, and it quickly became one of his favorite pleasures.

Demons, by nature, were highly solitary creatures. Theirs was a cutthroat existence, and letting another demon get close, physically or emotionally, was asking to be betrayed and possibly killed. They didn’t touch, didn’t hug, barely even spoke outside of the job.

Once the physical pain of his Fall had healed, Lucifer found temporary relief in the presence of Mazikeen at his side. In payment for her taking care of him after his Fall, he made her his right hand in Hell. That wasn’t to say he trusted her, of course; she was a demon after all. But they were allied, and oath-bound, and that was as good as it got in Hell.

It took longer than it should have for Lucifer to understand the pain he was still feeling once his physical wounds were but a memory. Once he finally did, he was furious with himself. He wasn’t a child, in need of coddling and hugs and attention from mummy and daddy! But he couldn’t shake the deep _need_ within himself for a different kind of connection than he could find in Hell.

That was the reason that, eventually, he gave in and formed a connection with Maze. He hadn’t thought it would even work, at first, and using it was awkward for the longest time, but eventually they figured it out. After being alone, in the celestial sense for so long, Lucifer clung to her like a lifetime, even forgetting that she was a demon, and likely to betray him one day.

And he had paid for that closeness, in the end. First with Amenadiel, then with Cain. But, as it turned out, Lucifer had hurt her too, when it came to his Mother’s plots, and Linda had a lot to work through with them before they could straighten out their tangled bond. A demon shouldn’t even be able to feel betrayed, as Maze did, and he wasn’t sure if that was some of the bond siphoning off his emotions, or if Earth was changing her as surely as it seemed to be changing him.

It was taking him years to unlearn his habits from Hell: to accept hugs without anticipating a knife in the back and wanting to slip his own blade into their kidneys. He still froze in terror when Ella or the Detective’s spawn hugged him - not from a fear of her, but from a fear of what harm he might instinctively cause her.

Sex was always different, something done with humans or Mazikeen, and an escape from the ingrained habits of Hell, instead of being tied to them. But non-sexual, intimate human contact? That was something he was still very much adjusting to.

And now, even as his wings healed, Lucifer felt something else healing inside himself - something he hadn’t even realized was broken. After so long away from Heaven, from the closeness of other Angels, from the groups he and Maze had mockingly called flocks but were more properly called families… it took Lucifer quite a while to realize that he was suddenly a part of one again.

They had been growing on him for a few years now, but with their recent dip into prayers, it was like he had unscrewed the lid on a jar he had sealed long ago.

Linda’s words to Reese came back to him: _”He’s a good man. He’s my friend._ Lucifer had been bemused at the time, slightly surprised that Linda felt more for him than just a patient, or former lover. He should have known after she agreed to his insane “pop into Hell to save the Detective” plan, but in his defense he wasn’t great with human emotions. Perhaps it had been hearing her say it aloud. Lucifer had an instinctive taste for lies, and in that moment Linda wasn’t lying, even to herself.

Then there was Ella, who had the brilliant idea to take the _Devil_ to church. Who had a light that literally captivated celestials. Who dropped everything to come to Vegas with him when Candy was missing. Who had, instead of running in terror from the double whammy of his nature and Maze’s face, stuck around and spent hours meticulously taking care of his wings. Who even now mentally sent him goofy forensic memes on her lunch break.

Lucifer couldn’t imagine what he had done to deserve either of them, let alone them both, and it took awhile for him to realize that his Angelic side was damn near _floating_ at the idea of having movie night with them again this Friday night. Not to mention the (perfectly innocent) sleepover after, and then Saturday on the _Pleiades_.

For the first time in literal eons, his happiness wasn’t sexually-based, but _family_ -based.

It would take some getting used to.

As would the fresh, painful reminder that, even his closest siblings had abandoned him after his Fall. Dad might have forbidden visiting him, and Hell might have been frightening for the younger ones, and some of them might have been shocked or busy, but no one could hear their thoughts except those they allowed. The truth was that any one of them could have sent him a prayer, with Dad none the wiser, and he would have known that he wasn’t alone. Just one prayer, in the millenniums since he had seen them, and Lucifer could have been given just a taste of hope.

But there had been nothing. And so, even as Lucifer reveled in his new-formed family, he mourned his old one.


End file.
